sea fever
by abadeerly
Summary: Bonnibel Banner inherits her late uncles home, a quaint one storey affair nestled comfortably between a forest and the swampy moors just outside the main city. What she never expected was to find out her uncles secrets, or the whimsical creatures that inhabited the woodland.


The day had begun with a drizzle. Bonnibel had been naive to assume it would eventually clear up; five hours after her early start to the day and the sky was still grey and the rain was still silently sleeting. The cold breeze worsened too, as Bonnibel packed her belongings into the trunk of her car and drove towards the western side of the small city, towards the moors and swampland that civilisation had nestled itself in long ago.

The long, winding road that took her away from the main roads and towards her late uncles house was bumpy and muddy and no doubt dirtying the underside of her shiny city car. At least it'd be acceptable to be a social recluse down here. Bonnibel tried her best to shake that thought out of her head, but it was true none the less; she'd never been one for keeping in touch with friends or family, and the group of people she _did _talk to semi-regularly were all online anyway. And it's not like she'd be spending all her time at her uncles place, anyway, just the over the holidays and during the hot summers, when she had little to no work to do.

As she came to a halt at the end of the road she peered across at the house she was going to be staying in over the cold months of November and December, a quaint one storey affair with a front porch and everything. It was a little run down and worn around the edges, mostly because her uncle had never been one for do it yourself projects and getting anyone in their right minds to come down here with a truck to do renovation was next to impossible. The government seemed completely fine with forgetting anybody even lived this far outside the city, seemed at peace with letting houses like her uncles become an empty shell of what once was.

The mud _squelched_ under her boots as she exited her car and her feet sank an inch or two into the earth. Water filled the shoe shaped indents as she made her way round to the back of her car to retrieve her belongings, putting extra effort into not dropping bag of fishing supplies. The two and a half hour trek back into the city to buy her favourite bait or to get another line wasn't something Bonnibel wanted to do at all in the two months she was down here.

Bonnibel wasn't surprised to find that her uncle had gotten someone to put a _note _on the door. It was just like him, to go and be all dramatic even after his passing. _Bonnibel_, it read in his scrawled handwriting, _the keys to the shed are under the empty plant pot, just in case you need any extra storage/need to get the generator running for the electricity. I've left only the essentials inside - the telephone, kitchenette and TV. Bedroom and guest room are as I left them. If you need anything, call Finn_. There was a number at the bottom of the note, slightly smudged from the weather, but there all the same.

Vaguely, she remembers Finn from visiting her uncle as a teen. He was a little younger than her, about a year or two, and she had always assumed that he had a crush on her. Still, he had been kind and willing to help her uncle with any chores or work around the area. She remembers one time, as she takes out the key in her pocket, sitting on the porch with her head in her hands and watching as Finn helped cut down one of the dead trees that once littered her uncles property. Maybe the curious way she looked at him that day was what fuelled his little crush on her. Bonnibel wrinkled her nose at the thought. Unbeknownst to either of them then, men simply didn't float her boat.

"Crud," The house was cold when she entered with her bags and flicking the switch a few times told her that she'd have to trek down to the edge of the woodland to turn the generator on. It had only just gone three in the afternoon and Bonnibel decided on unpacking her foodstuffs and essentials, otherwise she'd leave them til morning when she'd rather stay in bed, and then she'd just keep putting the task off for weeks.

It was four o'clock when Bonnibel stepped outside into the wet again. The rain was more persistent, growing colder and angrier by the hour it seemed and something told her that it was only going to get worse as the night drew closer. She took a moment as she stood on the front step, hands shaking as she zipped up her jacket and retrieved the key from under the empty clay plant pot, to think about seeing just how much land her uncle had passed down to her. The papers she'd received skimmed over the details of how many acres she now owned, only stating that he had marked out his own land and had left it at that. The _squelch_ing of her boots on the mud joined the sound of pouring rain as she set out towards the woodland, deciding she'd go as far as the old lake her father used to take her to when they went fishing together.

The shed sat a ways away from the house, right up against where the woodland started and the waterlogged land ended, but it matched it's shambled aesthetic just nicely. Bonnibel had spent fifteen minutes following the waterproofed wiring that hooked up the generator to the rest of the house. The key fit nicely in the hole as she unlocked the door, and busied herself with switching the generator on before locking it up again. She'd think about putting some things in there once she settled down within the next seemed pretty good at keeping the weather out despite its worn appearance, too, so she possibly had half-way place to put her fishing tackle if the lake was still as bountiful as she remembered.

The forested area wasn't as chilling as she remembered either. The fog that settled a few inches off the ground made for a dream like state rather than the imposing feeling that settled in the mind of her younger self. Even with the rain it seemed too quiet, too peaceful than what she remembered. Perhaps even though she was a teen she had still been susceptible to the horror films she used to watch with her dad, and that had crossed over to the memories she had of the woods next to her uncles rickety old house.

Another fifteen minutes of walking and she finally found herself coming upon the lake. That must have been ten acres of land, then, if she had been walking at a steady rate the whole time, and that was only walking in a straight line. She assumed the dirt path she had drove up towards the house was also part of the owned land, and possibly even up towards the bit of shoreline, just northward of the homestead, was hers too.

The thirty minute walk back was colder and wetter than what she had first thought. She hadn't expected it to get so bad so quick, but from what her uncle had told her the constant damp came with living in such a place. At least the marine life would be interesting. She was aware of the dangerous wildlife around the swamps, like the gators and the snapping turtles, but there was also the promise of trout, salmon and bass.

The house was still cold when she entered, a downside to her walk up to the lake and back, and she quickly made haste with turning the heating on via a switch under the stairs. Now with warmth, and light, she settled herself down on the dusty couch and reached over to one of the boxes she'd placed onto the coffee table in an attempt to tell herself to sort the contents once she got back. She supposed a box of books would make do as a centrepiece for the time being.

It was a loud bang that made Bonnibel wake a few hours later, blearily palming her eyes and dog-earing the page her book was open on. It hadn't been that interesting, but Bonnibel would probably resume reading it later on nonetheless. The wind and rain had picked up considerably so, much to her displeasure as she looked out the window from the couch. The bang was probably the clothes line falling down falling outside so she paid no mind to the noise and instead stood up to put her book down and close the curtains; there were plenty of things that could go bump in the night around here, anyway.

She shuffled down the hallway to the bedroom once owned by her uncle, surprised to see it not looking like a bomb had gone off. From her memories of the room she had only ever pictured it with his journals and books laying about the place, his 'scientific pursuits' strewn across the desk and invading his sleep space. Now he was gone the place had been cleaned up, old beige sheets changed for plain white ones and shelves mostly cleared of his belongings. She knew they would be somewhere, probably hidden in his desk or under the stairs somewhere, but for now all she could be bothered to do was close the curtains, change out of her clothes, and sink into bed.

* * *

It was weird to wake up in a house she hadn't been in for so long. The lack of hustle and bustle from outside was calming, however, and she felt fine knowing she'd have the next two months mostly to herself. Grieving was something she liked to do alone. After her mother passed away she and her father didn't talk for what felt like months, but when she finally felt well enough they reconnected like nothing had happened, went fishing together every week for a few years.

Yes, Bonnibel liked to be alone with her feelings. She could sit and work through them, assess which ones were rational and toss away those that weren't. Apparently her uncle was the same, hence why he lived in the middle of nowhere.

Her stomach growled and she was pulled out of her half asleep state to the realisation that she'd barely eaten the day before. Apart from breakfast, which she had quickly eaten upon waking up, she only ate at midday at a service station on the highway. Grumbling, Bonnibel stood from her bed and shuffled out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen. At least she didn't have to get changed at all if she didn't want to. There were no pesky neighbours, no landlords banging on her door for rent, no chance anyone could peak through her windows to stare at her choice in pyjamas.

She poured herself some cereal and put on the kettle she'd brought to brew herself some coffee. Despite several similarities she had with her uncle they always clashed when it came to caffeinated drinks. He even despised tea, which made Bonnibel suspicious of him even being part of the family on some occasions. With her coffee brewing and her breakfast sorted, Bonnibel was well and truly content to just sit at the table in the kitchen and maybe put on the radio as she ate. There was no hurrying, no complicated christmas gift buying, nothing.

_Knock, knock, knock. _Only, someone was knocking at the door as she spooned the first bit of cereal in her mouth. Bonnibel frowned and stood up from her chair, heading back into the bedroom to fish the key out of her jacket pocket so she could unlock the front door.

"Coming!" Bonnibel called, fiddling about with the key as she hastily shuffled her way back out the bedroom and into the hallway once more. She unlocked the door and pulled it inwards, blinking against the morning light that now filtered through the crack as she peered on out.

She squinted at the man in front of her, chin length blonde hair tussled back into a makeshift ponytail.

The man blinked back at her with a smile. "You're Peters niece, Bonnibel, right?" The gears worked in Bonnibel's brain to figure out who this five and a half foot tall man was and how he knew her name, and then they clicked and _oh, yes, of course, that made perfect sense_.

"Finn?" The smile on his face turned into a grin, then, as Bonnibel opened the door wider. "How- Why are you here?" Bonnibel floundered, stepping to the side to let him in.

Finn must've found it funny, because he laughed softly and shrugged off his cardigan, hanging it up on the coat rack in such a way that made Bonnibel think that maybe he was the one who put the note on the front door and maybe he was the one who changed the sheets. Maybe he knew where all of her uncles books were. It hit her, then, that she was still in her pyjamas. "God, sorry, I woke up like ten minutes ago,"

"Don't worry about it," He laughed again, making his way into the kitchen to where her barely eaten breakfast was. The kettle went off and Bonnibel jumped. Judging by the way his lips twitched upwards, she assumed if they were on more friendly terms he would've laughed again.

"You want a coffee?" Bonnibel asked him, already reaching for another mug from the cupboard. He bobbed his head yes and she poured them both a drink before anything else was said or done. He muttered a thanks when she passed him his mug, and she settled in front of her cereal once more. "What are you doing here?" She asked as politely as she could while she ate, watching as he stared out the kitchen window that faced the woodland before answering.

"Oh, uh, I've been doing some work around here since Peter passed." Finn explained. "Just making sure the weather doesn't shut off the power for good and stopping the wildlife from making a home under the decking."

Bonnibel hummed. "I didn't think anyone lived so close around here."

"There's a few of us on the south side of the highway," He smiled into his mug. "I think there's twenty, including myself. Real remote and quiet down there."

"More than here?" Bonnibel asked, jokingly, finishing her cereal.

"Nah, nothing's quieter than Peters place," Finn shook his head. "Anyway, I was told you weren't coming for another couple days."

She frowned, midway through standing up to put her bowl into the sink. "Odd, I don't even remember telling anyone but my brother."

"Rob hasn't told you we've been keeping touch, huh?" Finn's smile twitched a little more. Bonnibel didn't know what was so amusing about her brother keeping things from her. "Yeah, he told us you'd be coming up a few months ago. Said November fourth."

"Sorry for coming early," Bonnibel muttered. "I never even thought about how Peter could've asked you or someone else to keep tabs on the house. Shows how smart I am."

Finn joined her in frowning. "If I remember correctly you're very smart." Bonnibel arched a brow. "Well, you were the only person that understood what Peter was talking about."

"He was an ex marine biologist, not some mad scientist like you and Rob used to make him out to be," Bonnibel huffed. "Speaking of which, do you happen to know where any of his books are?"

Finn blinked, clearly having thought about a response to the first of that sentence and not the second. "Uh, yeah, I put them in the attic, why?"

It's funny, how someone can visit a house so many times in their childhood and not know that a whole section of said house existed, how Bonnibel blinked and picked up her tea and followed Finn to the open space where the coat rack and their shoes were, how he stood on the tips of his toes and hooked his fingers into a crack in the ceiling and pulled down a folding staircase.

"Oh," Bonnibel peered up into the attic, eyes wide with wonder because this was a completely new section of a house that was already _weird _in it's quirky ways. "I never knew that he had an attic."

Finn shrugged a shoulder. "Guess he never wanted us up there as kids. Which makes sense, I don't wanna think about how many times we'd lock one of us up there or fall down the stairs."

That was a reasonable explanation. "Yeah, is there a light up there?"

"Oh, yeah, it's on a pully." And he mimed reaching out and pulling a string. "Bulb might have blown though, so give me a shout if you go up there and I'll remember to bring one over in a couple days."

"Shout?"

"Yeah. The storm last night was pretty bad, I need to check on the generator and make sure nothing in that old shed has broken."

Bonnibel hadn't noticed Finn had put his mug down on one of the steps, nor had she noticed that he'd shrugged his cardigan back on either. She was too transfixed on the attic. Then he nudged her with an elbow. "Thanks for the coffee, Bonnibel. I'll shout when I'm going, yeah?" And the door was closed behind him.

It was only natural for her to put her own mug down too, and carefully make her way up the old creaking stairs into the dark of the attic. The house itself was never too brightly lit, what with the almost constant wet weather and lack of natural light, so the upstairs was about the same as the rest of the house at night. She found the pully and was thankful when the one lightbulb flickered on and stayed on when she tugged at it, revealing a mass of dusty cardboard boxes full of pictures and journals and old books. She shifted around a piece of furniture covered by an old white sheet to get to one of the boxes filled with Peters belongings, thumbing over the spines of books and flipping pages before her eyes caught sight of a post it note peeling off one of the boxes nearer to the back, labelling the contents as '_Project Fin_'. She tugged the box away from the rest and lifted it out of the attic, gingerly picking her mug of coffee up and carrying both items carefully into the living room.

She assumed Project Fin was what her uncle had been doing down here after quitting his job at the marine lab in the city. He'd always been doing his experiments down at the lake and the shoreline whenever Bonnibel had visited. Always writing things down in his journal when they were near a body of water, regardless of if there was anything interesting happening.

The first item Bonnibel fished out of the box was another post it, a faded neon green mess of creases and folds with the words 'theories of therianthropy p.103-105.' scribbled hastily across it. She put the post it on the coffee table beside her drink, then removed the box from her lap to settle it down on the seat beside her.

"Theories of…" She'd never even heard of the word 'therianthropy' before. Which was saying something because Bonnibel had almost perfect memory and prided herself on knowing a lot of things regardless of how useless they were. She dug around in the box some more, picking out a sheet of paper with a detailed sketch of a human next to a seal. Bonnibel mentally noted that the seal was unusually large, and shook her head at the thought of her uncle getting excited over sighting a bigger-than-average seal.

A few old pictures of Peter with his fellow marine biologists were in the box too, as well as a couple of him and her dad, and one of him and a woman Bonnibel didn't recognise but assumed was a woman from Finn's side of the highway or a fishing buddy and put the pictures onto the coffee table. She sipped on her drink as she took out a few of his journals and put them on top of the book she had been reading the night before, hopeful to get into them and see what he'd been writing all those years. Perhaps she'd get a few tips on the wildlife around here, or maybe she'd be able to see what 'Project Fin' was.

She closed her hand around Peters old walkman, lifting it up to see if it still worked, when she saw the book below it was titled _Theories of Therianthropy _and subsequently put the walkman back in the box and lifted out the paperback novel.

The book had an absence of a blurb on the back and had no reviews. It took her a second for her to even realise there wasn't even an author's name credited anywhere on the book, and a quick check told her that there wasn't a name on the front of back pages, either.

Checking the first post it note she flipped to page 103 and was met with a very similiar sketch of a large seal with nothing to show the scale with the words 'Seal Folk / Selkies' underneath.

The first page described creatures, or 'selkies', that could shed their 'skin', thus changing from a seal to a woman. Bonnibel's scientific brain worked to figure out why this book was in her uncles box of notes, and why he'd written so many notes in the margins almost correcting the unknown author. The next page went on to discuss the origin behind the myth, detailing how these women have been said to be the wife of whoever steals their skin and how they'd bear the man lots of children before eventually finding their skin and fleeing back into the ocean.

_Knock, knock._ As she neared the end of page 104 Finn was back at the front door. She closed the book of nonsense and pushed it to the side of the box, something she might come back to if she fancied touching up her knowledge on scottish folklore.

"You got the note on the door, yeah?" Finn greeted her with another smile when Bonnibel opened the door again. He peered over her shoulder at the attic that was still open before continuing his train of thought. "Just give me a call if something switches itself off or breaks and I should have a solution."

"And the shed? I did hear a bang last night."

"The shed's okay, generators still running." And then he caught onto what Bonnibel had said. "You heard a bang?"

Bonnibel nodded. "Could've been thunder, or something falling over outside?"

Finn frowned and gave the front of the house a glance. "I… don't think anything fell, and I've been checking on this house for the past couple months. Could've been a few rocks off the cliffs nearby but… I don't know they're like an hours walk that way I don't think you'd have heard them." He jabbed a finger over his shoulder to point in the direction of the city.

Bonnibel shrugged. "Maybe a tree fell in the woods? That happens sometimes."

"Oh, yeah," Finn nodded, frown falling off his face. "Probably just a tree."

"Probably just a tree," Bonnibel repeated, offering him a smile. "Thanks for checking in on the house, Finn. I have your number, promise I'll call when there's an emergency."

"Or if you're getting no signal on the TV. The satellite dish is a little finicky after some heavy winds."

"Or if my TV is broken," Bonnibel added, fighting the urge to roll her eyes in a friendly manner. "You should head back. Who knows what things need fixing down there?"

"Yeah, thanks again for the coffee Bonnibel." He stepped off of the porch, shoes making that uncomfortable _squelch_ing sound. "Text me tonight and I'll tell you what days I'll check on the house, yeah?"

"Yes, Finn," Bonnibel called after him, actually rolling her eyes this time as he got into his red pick-up truck. He waved at her through the window as they said their farewells and Bonnie closed the door with a soft _click_.

She still had a full box of her uncle's research on the couch. She still had an attic full of memories and Peters findings and old relics.

She was one hundred percent going to waste the rest of the morning with searching through them all.

* * *

The box labelled 'Project Fin' was little more than Peters research into these creatures called 'selkies' and other 'fin and mer-folk'. The two full journals he had written in might as well have been nonsense in Bonnibel's eyes, detailing many of the tales and how he'd 'seen' one these creatures after awaking one night and going down to the shoreline to fish. Bonnibel pinned it down to the fact that, as stated in the same journal not two pages before this, he'd not slept for a few days because of his important research. The other journal spoke of other creatures of mythological backgrounds, such as grindylows, nagas and kelpies and their accompanying tales and abilities, all seemingly 'fact checked' by Peter himself.

With the first box being a bit of a let down Bonnibel decided to leave the rest of the boxes in the attic until later and instead decided to grab her fishing tackle before it decided to rain again.

The thirty minute walk to the lake was worth it anyway; the peaceful silence helped her shake off the fictional stories that her uncle had been so obsessed with, but she still questioned _why _in the back of her head. Why had her uncle, an ex marine biologist, been so captivated by these tales of Scottish and Gaelic folklore?

She stopped questioning it when she got to the lake, finding that the old rickety fishing pier had most of the fencing blown off of it in the storm the night before. She made a mental note to text Finn to see if he could help her fix it back up to its former glory and instead put her things down on the lakeside to wade into the water to grab whatever else had been blown in. An old fishing net was floating on the surface of the water, tangled in the plant life that grew in and around the lake. Bonnibel quickly began tugging it out of the awkward places, careful in case she found one of the many wildlife tangled up in the ropes. Despite her tugging from the shallow end of the lake, the large net seemed to be tangled around something in the middle of the body of water. She thought about leaving it for Finn to help out with until she noticed something odd in the net, something long and black and splayed out. It was too far away for her to properly see, but she assumed it was an animal and was quick to wade further into the lake to resume tugging the creature free in hopes that it wasn't injured or dead. If it was, she'd still have to get it out for the fishes sake, and hope it wasn't an innocent bunny or someones pet. She tugged the net free, finally, and pulled the creature a little bit closer so that she could just about make out it's shape. The creature bobbed, shifted as the netting pulled it along, and turned in the water.

Bonnibel's blood went cold as she vigorously fought back the urge to scream at the sight in front of her. The body floated just above the water for a few more seconds before it submerged in the brackish muddy water. In sheer panic Bonnibel let go of the netting and took two steps backwards, only to remember that this was a _person _and they could still be potentially alive considering they had been floating.

She frantically began tugging at the netting once more in hope that the body would catch and drag back towards the lakeside, but when she'd reeled in most of the rope and the body still hadn't surfaced she very quickly threw her own safety to the wind to wade even further into the lake, hands frantically going against the water as she tried to locate and grab onto the body.

There were probably a bunch of things she could've been doing at twelve in the afternoon on a Monday. She could've stayed in bed, could've sat down and talked to Finn some more, she could've completed unpacking her belongings. Dragging a (possibly) dead body out of the lake was definitely nowhere near the top of that list. But, still, she was doing it.

Bonnibel immediately got to work on doing chest compressions, thankful that her school had made them do mandatory first aid lessons once a year so that she wasn't completely useless in a situation like this. Then again, this is the only situation she'd ever been in where those lessons had come to be of use.

When the other woman - woman, probably a little younger than Bonnibel, incredibly pale and very, very naked - began coughing and spluttering up water Bonnibel fell backwards onto her knees, out of breath and suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that she was completely wet through. The woman in front of her finished her coughing, eyes fluttering closed once more and she probably passed out from shock from the cold water.

The quiet came back, then, as the water calmed down and the woman breathed in and out and in and out. God, was Bonnibel thankful for the silence, thankful for those lessons, thankful that she could grab her fishing tackle in one hand and half carry half drag the unconscious woman back towards her house. She leant her equipment up against the shed when she came across it, getting a better hold of the woman in both her arms then, and brought her inside her house and into the warmth.

Little did Bonnibel know, the girl wasn't the only thing she'd brought inside.


End file.
